Google Trends: “Deserving” of the Best Female Video award and rise of riots cause rise in police talk
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In 2009, the VMAs were aired with many celebrities in attendance. The VMAs’ were what caught the attention of many people during the month of September. Celebrities in attendance were people such as Taylor Swift, Kanye West, and Beyonce Knowles.
A particular event that was talked about that night and for the rest of September was that of when Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for the Best Female Video award. Kanye put Taylor Swift on the spot after publically announcing that he believed Beyonce deserved the award over her. This caused tension between the artists which caused a trend of searches on the issue itself.
The graph shows in the month of Septemeber in 2009 the average number of searches for the name Kanye West and Taylor Swift. According to the Google search trends, Kanye West was the artist most searched for during the month of the issue, even though he was talked about in the media as rude for embarassing Taylor during her speech. His popularity caused him to be in the lead for searches over Taylor before, during, and after the incident. This shows how even someone in the wrong is often glorified for just being famous and rich.
Rise of riots cause rise in police talk
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The rise of riots has shot up after the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. This is seen more apparent in the months of May to June. The cause of deaths linked back to police brutality, key word being police.
Any attention brought up for police was negative, as police injustice and brutality were the main views associated to police during the lootings and protests of summer 2020. The police were always a more popular search over riots, even during the riots of summer 2020. Although this is true, it is apparent in Google trends that both the searching of terms with the words police and riot shot up around the same time during May of 2020. This links the police to the riots which cause more talk on police awareness during the time of injustice. The riots brought more attention to the police, mostly negative.
This trend shows us how one thing may correlate to the other, as the police correlated to the riots and lootings. These events searched caused damaged to cities both emotionally and physically.
